D&D 5E Can your Druids wear metal armor?

[CleverNickName]

I understand that, but for a moment let’s entertain the idea that a player chose to play a druid, and then during play declares that their character dons a (metal) chain shirt. What can the DM do in this situation? Well, they can invent a consequence, which is a house rule. They can say “your character wouldn’t do that,” which violates the player’s agency. Or they can say “by agreeing to play a druid, you’ve agreed not to wear metal armor; you’re now breaking that agreement,” and incur consequences according to the social contract. In either case 1 or case 3, you have to go beyond what’s written in the book to enforce the restriction, which makes it incomplete as a rule. In case 2 it is a complete rule, but it is unique among D&D rules in that it requires the DM to tell the player what their own character will and won’t do. That’s a valid way to read it, but I don’t think it’s the intent.

When it happened at my table, I did the following.

• used narrative to remind the player of the rule
• called a break when the reminder was ignored
• talked to the player about it
• made a quick rule change
• resumed play.

That fifth step was that I would add non-metal materials to the game that would let all druids wear breastplates. I got buy-in from the player, wrote it up, and we moved on.

Step 4 would have been different if the player had stubbornly insisted on wearing that one specific breastplate they had just found, but my hands aren't tied (I could have retconned the 'metal' breastplate to be made of beetle shell, for example), but whatever I ended up doing would have been cleared with the player before resuming play. It was my fault for not discussing the armor restriction with the player at Session Zero, when they first rolled the character up. I won't forget next time.

 

[Remathilis]

I would hope plenty of druid players argue exactly that! I mean, that's the philosophy behind one of the major druid sects in Eberron (The Children of Winter), just as an example.

And yet, no sect of Eberron druids have argued going into battle wearing full metal armor is acceptable. Not even warforged druids.

 

[Charlaquin]

But it's not cool for you to say "I'm going to play a druid, but I don't like this one rule so I'm going to ignore it. My druid is going to make a beeline to the armor shop, buy a steel breastplate, and wear it, rules be damned. And then I'm going to argue with you, and the rulebook, and everyone else at this table until everyone agrees with me." Seriously, who does that?

No one. No one does that, and accordingly it is not a case under discussion as far as I’m aware.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, that would be clearer. But in practice the end result would be the same 99.9% of the time. No one really uses armour they're not proficient with in a real game.

Actually, it's a fairly big difference because getting armor proficiency through feats or MC is really common. I would dip fighter or cleric for a druid all the time if they weren't restricted from wearing heavy armor because of that stupid clause.

Hell, one of my current characters is a druid with a subclass I made myself that gets unarmored defense. And that's because I found having to discuss whether I can get natural armor found or made so irritating the last time I played a druid.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, sorry, I misremembered the text in question as being about multiclassing when you first asked it. Given that it is meant to refer to all druids, I think it is clearly inconsistent with the wording in the druid class entry, which says they are proficient in light and medium armor but won’t wear metal armor, rather than that they are only proficient in nonmetal light and medium armor. To resolve this inconsistency, we basically have to pick one of the two quotes to give priority to. I personally think giving priority to the text in the druid entry is the stronger interpretation, for two reasons: first, it would be weird for druids to be proficient in dragonscale armor but not standard scale mail, and second, if the intent was for druids to only be proficient in light armor and hide, they could have easily just said that. I also think the text on page 45 could more easily be read as a poorly worded summary of for the text in the druid entry than the reverse.

Yes. But interpreting the page 45 to have priority (i.e. druids lack proficiency in metal armours) actually solves your issue with the rule. The player has agency to decide that their character puts on metal armour, they just suffer non-proficiency penalties for it.

 

[TwoSix]

And yet, no sect of Eberron druids have argued going into battle wearing full metal armor is acceptable. Not even warforged druids.

Again, I have no problem with the trope of non-metal druids. I have issues with how the rule is stated in the PHB, because it's overly gamist and doesn't have provide a logical simulationist consequence, like most other trope enforcement in the PHB does.

 

[tetrasodium]

And yet, no sect of Eberron druids have argued going into battle wearing full metal armor is acceptable. Not even warforged druids.

Likely because it's not an issue for them.

 

[carkl3000]

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So you engaged in a significant amount of research and armed with all of that research went to someone who may or may not have a level of system understanding needed to even grasp the problem like you were asking for some kind of homebrew class.... Yea... That's part of the problem. Even if the GM in question had memorized literally every word & table in every 5e book to date 5e is horrible at explaining any depth or intent behind sections in the rules that would allow that gm to confidentially make decisions as an informed participant compared to older editions.

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

I knew from reading internet forums that different DMs might have differing ideas about what types of armor druids can use and what types of armor should be available in their adventuring world. I thought it was an appropriate thing to ask about. If he told me "never metal" and that the only armor items available are those described in published material, I would know I probably ought to build with high dex as a priority. Since he told me essentially that my character was free to wear whatever he wanted but that there could be consequences, and that he has no problem with crafting armor from exotic materials, I figured 14 Dex is enough and I can afford to bump Con a little more.

I don't have any desire to argue with a DM about stuff like this. I just want to know ahead of time, particularly with something that's important to the character build, what I can expect in the game.

But not everyone starting in a new game would consider that it might be an issue.

 

[Charlaquin]

Actually, it's a fairly big difference because getting armor proficiency through feats or MC is really common. I would dip fighter or cleric for a druid all the time if they weren't restricted from wearing heavy armor because of that stupid clause.

Hell, one of my current characters is a druid with a subclass I made myself that gets unarmored defense. And that's because I found having to discuss whether I can get natural armor found or made so irritating the last time I played a druid.

It makes a difference even if you never gain proficiency from another source, because there are clear rules describing what happens if you don armor you aren’t proficient with. If druids were simply considered not to be proficient in any armor made of metal, it would be considerably less restrictive than the restriction that they won’t wear it.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

I knew from reading internet forums that different DMs might have differing ideas about what types of armor druids can use and what types of armor should be available in their adventuring world. I thought it was an appropriate thing to ask about. If he told me "never metal" and that the only armor items available are those described in published material, I would know I probably ought to build with high dex as a priority. Since he told me essentially that my character was free to wear whatever he wanted but that there could be consequences, and that he has no problem with crafting armor from exotic materials, I figured 14 Dex is enough and I can afford to bump Con a little more.

I don't have any desire to argue with a DM about stuff like this. I just want to know ahead of time, particularly with something that's important to the character build, what I can expect in the game.

But not everyone starting in a new game would consider that it might be an issue.

I absolutely agree with you. I think @tetrasodium's point (which I also agree with) is that the PHB doesn't bother to explain that the druid armor limitation is about the story, not about character balance, and a little sidebar explaining that so that novice DMs and players wouldn't have to dig into internet discussion to find that out (or that they might not understand that at all) would have gone a long way.